by John Fowles
I looked back towards the path. The far more natural watchers there were strolling on, as if this trivial little bit of masculine brutality, the promised scene, had lost their interest also. Alison hadn’t moved, she still held a hand to her cheek, but now her head was bowed. There was a little shuddered outbreath as she tried to stifle the tears; then her voice, broken, hardly audible, in despair, almost self-amazed.
‘I hate you. I hate you.’
I said nothing, made no move to touch her. After a moment she looked up and everything in her expression was as it had been in her voice and words: hatred, pain, every female resentment since time began. But I clung to something, the something I had never seen, or always feared to see, in those intense grey eyes, the quintessential something behind all the hating, the hurtness, the tears. A small step poised, a shattered crystal waiting to be reborn. She spoke again, as if to kill what I was looking at.
‘I do.’
‘Then why wouldn’t you let me walk away?’
She shook her abruptly lowered head, as if the question was unfair.
‘You know why.’
‘No.’
I knew within two seconds of seeing you.’ I went closer. Her other hand went to her face, as if I might hit her again. ‘I understand that word now, Alison. Your word.’ Still she waited, face hidden in her hands, like someone being told of a tragic loss. ‘You can’t hate someone who’s really on his knees. Who’ll never be more than half a human being without you.’
The bowed head, the buried face.
She is silent, she will never speak, never forgive, never reach a hand, never leave this frozen present tense. All waits, suspended. Suspend the autumn trees, the autumn sky, anonymous people. A blackbird, poor fool, sings out of season from the willows by the lake. A flight of pigeons over the houses; fragments of freedom, hazard, an anagram made flesh. And somewhere the stinging smell of burning leaves.
eras amet qui numquam amavit
quique amavit eras amet